Poland Faction Thread

**intel** · December 31, 2009, 07:51 PM

This thread is meant to discuss Poland in all of it's aspects in the mod's timeframe and to provide mod developers with additional info (and perhaps interested community members as well-there's no such thing as too much knowledge

). I hope that it will be well-recieved by the team and will serve it's purpose, along with encouraging people to make other faction-specified threads

So, let's start. For now, it's more of a placeholder than actual thread-additional info will be gathered and the first post updated.

Piast Dynasty(Mieszko I - Boleslaus III the Wrymouthed/960 A.D.- 1138 A.D.)

Introduction
In the 1000s, Poland was a relatively young state, still maintaining it's Slavic nature, both in terms of social and military structure. Although there most probably was some kind of Polish tribal state before Mieszko I, there are very few mentions of it, and predecessors of this first recorded Polish ruler are semi-legendary. Even Mieszko I is a figure shrouded in mystery: there are theories of his German/Norman origin and probably, contrary to popular belief, he was baptised in Orthodox, not Catholic rite. It's almost sure that he inherited the state after his ancestors (and then doubled it's teoritorry).
Poland made it's debut as a coalition of Slavic tribes united by either alliances and might of Piasts' Druzhinas. Maintaining a sufficent military in a densely forested teoritories, with primitive economy and relatively low population required constant expansion and raids, and first Piasts executed this policy with great succes (especially during the reign of Boleslaus I the Brave, first King of Poland), until the reign of Mieszko II, when it rendered inadequate to the quickly changing situation in the region.
---to be continued-----

Military of first Piasts
The core of the Piast military was cavalry, consisting of both trusted and rich Slavic soldiers and Norman mercenaries, given a generic name 'Druzyna'. They were proffesional warriors, (relatively) heavy armoured recieving paid from ruler's treasury. Abraham ben Jacob (jewish traveller from muslim Cordoba) stated that a hundred of Druzyna was worth of 1000 infatryman. The number of those fierce warriors was the measure of ruler's power-Boleslaus the Brave, one of the greatest kings in Polish history and certainly greatest in discussed timeframe, had about 3000 of them.
The secondary force was infantry, consisting of local garrisons, peasants, hunters and tribal warriors. These were generally divided between Tarczownicy (unarmoured soldiers armed with shield and a spear) and missle troops, mainly archers and skirmishers.
----to be continued-----

Drużyna
---description will be added---

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

---more images and scans coming soon---

Tarczownicy
---description will be added---

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

---more images and scans coming soon---

Norman mercenaries
---description will be added---

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

---more images and scans coming soon---

---thread under development---

**Resurrection** · January 01, 2010, 02:59 AM

I am sorry to dissapoint you, but this thread would be useful if we were deciding things yet. Alas we are working on making the decisions real for more then a half year now and what we need is specific research on request by mod developers carried out by intern researchers. If you are interested in helping the mod, the best way would be to become researcher yourself. If that is the case, please contact Alkidas as the Head of European Research.

Thank you anyway and don't get discouraged in making this topic, I am sure people would like to discuss Poland (should Silesian_Noble come around for instance), I just wanted to inform you that it won't be of much use for the mod developers.

Cheers.

**Alkidas** · January 01, 2010, 02:58 PM

We are looking for good researchers all the time, though. This includes Poland.

**intel** · January 01, 2010, 03:56 PM

I officially aply then. Is Polish unit roster completed/final? are any of Polish units done?

**Alkidas** · January 01, 2010, 06:14 PM

The roster afair is pretty well done already, so anyone wanting to help us in improving it I think would have to pretty good. But while I'm generally fairly knowledgeable about past research when it comes to units, Sum & the rest are better at understanding present needs. Where the clearest gaps are when it comes to Poland is tech-tree and traits & ancillaries which obviously require different sort of knowledge than units.

**chris7ian** · January 02, 2010, 08:16 PM

Werent the polish still using the druzyna units where the Germans invaded in 1939?

**sumskilz** · January 03, 2010, 12:38 AM

Originally Posted by chris7ian

Werent the polish still using the druzyna units where the Germans invaded in 1939?

If so, I'm sure it was just a case of the same term being applied to something more modern. I vaguely recall reading that Druzina can mean something like Battalion in some modern Slavic languages, but I could be mistaken.

**intel** · January 04, 2010, 08:14 AM

Originally Posted by Alkidas

The roster afair is pretty well done already, so anyone wanting to help us in improving it I think would have to pretty good. But while I'm generally fairly knowledgeable about past research when it comes to units, Sum & the rest are better at understanding present needs. Where the clearest gaps are when it comes to Poland is tech-tree and traits & ancillaries which obviously require different sort of knowledge than units.

All right. But I want insight in everything regarding Poland in this mod

I'm ready to cooperate- are there any polish-speaking researchers/developers in the team? That would help, because writing in english can double the amount of time needed to write something. I can also write traits/unit description, but given the quality of my english it's certain that it will require proofreader.

Originally Posted by chris7ian

Werent the polish still using the druzyna units where the Germans invaded in 1939?

Hell no! Just as French weren't using Gendarmes...

Originally Posted by sumskilz

If so, I'm sure it was just a case of the same term being applied to something more modern. I vaguely recall reading that Druzina can mean something like Battalion in some modern Slavic languages, but I could be mistaken.

Druzyna=company. More or less.

**Alkidas** · January 04, 2010, 05:34 PM

We have at least one Polish member atm. Haven't been in contact with him for awhile, but I think he might offer assistance, but that's up to him of course. Your English doesn't look too bad to me. So what are you good at? For instance, tech-tree is what we would mostly need help with (right now we have a researcher working on the Polish tech-tree, but the more the merrier...). That requires knowledge of Polish state & culture. Units as I said require quite a lot of relevant knowledge. Or rather relevant, reliable sources - researchers don't really need to know anything, but need to have access to good, reliable sources and motivation to peruse them. Traits & ancillaries are related to state, culture & society as well - useful, but we are not desperately short of them.

**intel** · January 05, 2010, 06:34 AM

I have good knowledge of my country's history in all aspects, as well as reliable sources. I pressume that the tech-tree is buildings tech tree? Or is it units tech tree?

I officialy apply.